New Harmony.—In connection with early attempts in the last century to found com munistic settlements in this country the name of Robert Owen (q.v.) is conspicuous. This English manufacturer, an enthusiastic com munist, having.seen his efforts in Great Britain .4ail of fruition, visited , this country and founded a nttmber of communities, the best Icnown of which was that of New Harmony, Ind. Most of the others were short-lived, and that of New Harmony, born in 1825, expired in 1827.
The Among the communities that owe their origin to religious fervor, and which still survive at Mount Lebanon, N. Y.; Union Village, Ohio; Watervliet, N. Y.; and elsewhere are those of the Shakers (q.v.). Their founder, Ann Lee (q.v.), landed in New York in 1774, with eight followers from Eng land. They had fled to escape the persecution which had followed her bold assertion of divine revelation. The Shakers are celibates, and thus their communities have not grown very rap idly, yet 15 are said to exist to-day.
Oneida The Oneida Com mumty, another of the very few survivals of that communistic spirit which swept over the cotmtry in the middle forties, was established in 184S. It ignored the regulation of marriage, founding the union of the sexes purely on the mutual consent of the man and woman. It was because.of this that the Oneida Community fell into evil repute, and this reputation ex tended in many cases to communities less deserving of the stigma. The union of one man with one woman the community expressly discouraged as an °exclusive and :idolatrous attachment." When a man and woman' were brought together, and showed a tendency to °fall in love,° everything was done by the society to discourage such relationship, even to the extent of forcing them apart by publicly expressed condemnation. A more extraordi nary view of sex relationship has probably never suggested itself among all the confused and eccentric befiefs of manldnd. The Oneida Community was founded by John Humphrey Noyes, in Madison County, N. Y. They prac tised communism and a change of occupation (a Fourierite principle). They have, it is said, forbidden the admission of new members.
Harmony Harmony Society, which was succeeded in 1825 by New Harmony, Robert Owen having purchased the land of that settlement from George Rapp (q.v.) and his followers, was a notable expenment Rapp's notions were queer enough, but he had great influence with his followers, who re garded him as possessed of supernatural powers. They practised communism and celi bacy from 1805, the date of the founcling of the community in Butler County, Pa., where they remained until 1814, when they changed their location to the Wabash Valley. Here the settlement flourished until the purchase of the lands by Robert Owen.
Amami CO MMU The Amana Com munity, still surviving, was formed in 1£342 by emigrants from Germany and Switzerland, who originally belonged to the peasant class. They settled in New York State, near Buffalo, and later removed to Iowa. They were spiritual ists who regarded themselves as the subjects of special revelation. This religio-communistic
settlement is probably the earliest in ongin this country, for it traces the beginnings of its creed as far back as the early part of the 18th century. Their rules of life are rigid and for bidding; amusements are prohibited; and much that ministers to innocent pleasure is banished as sin ful.
The Icarian Community.—To.mention even the names of all the communities that exist or have existed in the United States would take more space than can be given to the subject. The appended bibliography will guide to aU the information of which the reader may be in search. But special mention ought not to be omitted of the Icarian Conununity, remarkable as owing its origin to a book, 'A Voyage to Icaria,) by Etienne Cabot (born 1788), who had been a member of the French legislature and a leader of the Carbonari. He sailed in 1848 with a number of his followers from France, and established the community in Illinois in accordance with the ideas contained in his work. They numbered as many as 1,500 at one time. Later they were compelled to seek other settlement in Iowa. This community was peculiar in that it came nearer to the ideal of democratic conununism; the rigid regulations of other communities were absent, the point aimed at being to let every one do as he pleased.
A settlement in which no oonunumty of property save that of land obtains, and in which the governrnent is nearly as purely demo cratic, is that of Fairhope, Ala., founded a few years ago by a handful of disciples of Henry George. It is organized as a corporation, by which its real estate is administered. The annual value of the land is taken for communal purposes. It numbers about 300 members, and up to the present time is prosperous.
Significance of Communism.—All these ex periments which have been reviewed have failed to demonstrate the feasibility of communal life. Existence within its confines is, for the most part, meagre and unsatisfying.. Though these communities sometimes grow nch, prog ress in its finer sense there is none; they do not rise in culture and intelligence above their original level. Yet some things they have demonstrated, among which are the possibil ities of a more peaceful industry, more un selfish lives, together with a fuller leisure, and freedom from the harassing fear of want. Abnormal as they seem, they are really pro tests against what in our civilization is ab normal. Clothed, as the most successful of them are, in religious guise, the fact that they are impulses, even when most eccentric, of the more profound and imperishable nature of man, is vastly significant.
Bibliography.-- Lavaleye, 'Primitive Prop erty' ; Nordhoff, 'The Communistic Societies of the United States) ; Hinds, W. A., 'Ameri can Conununities) ; Lockwood, 'The New Har mony Communities' ; Noyes, J. W., 'History of American Socialisms' ; Emerson, R. W., 'Remi niscences of Brook Farm) ; Swift, Lindsay, 'Brook Farm) ; Gronlund, L., 'A Co-operative Commonwealth) ; and Dixon, W. H., 'New America,' for an interesting account of the Shakers.